Oh $h#t We Bought A Franchise Episode 3: In business for ourselves NOT by ourselves

Episode #3 "In business for ourselves NOT by ourselves"

Hi, we are Jack and Jill Johnson. Owners of the Pinks Window Services franchise in sunny Palm Beach, Florida.

Join us on the third episode of Oh $h#t We Bought A Franchise as we discuss how our business is doing in its fifth week of operations.

Ever wondered how a local window service franchise climbs the ladder of success? Strap in and get ready to be whisked away on our adventure with Pinks Window Services, where you'll be privy to the thrilling tales of our networking escapades in Palm Beach County, Florida. From the social media triumphs that have amped up our brand to an inspiring encounter at a business luncheon, we're unfolding the map to franchise fame. You'll be on the edge of your seat as we reveal our “Pinks in the Wild” campaign and the unspoken camaraderie among fellow home service franchise owners that's been instrumental to our growth.

Raise a glass with us as we toast to a pivotal triumph – snagging our biggest residential job! This episode isn't just a pat on the back; it's a treasure trove of shared wisdom from our weekly franchisee Google chats that's become the cornerstone of our strategy. Discover how these sessions spark innovation and strengthen our community ties, all while keeping the competitive spirit alive. And hold onto your hats, because we're not just about suds and windows; we're divulging our secrets to cultivating a flourishing client base with maintenance plans for steady revenue. Join us for a candid look at the ups and downs of franchise life and how every challenge is a stepping stone to our collective success.

Visit www.weboughtafranchise.com to subscribe.
Send us your questions for an upcoming episode at 305-710-0050.
From your pals in franchise ownership, Jack and Jill Johnson.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hi everyone. I'm Jack and I'm Jill and we bought a franchise. We did Welcome to episode number three of we bought a franchise. We're Jack and Jill Johnson. We are franchise consultants. We help people become franchise owners for a living and we thought it'd be fun last year our own franchise and kind of bring all of you who are working with us and maybe just listening passively into the world of what franchise ownership is really like.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Yeah, and then we created this podcast to share with you what we call the good, the bad and the ugly, and just share our experience on the other side.

Speaker 1: 0:52

And so the last two episodes we covered why we chose the franchise we did. We covered some personnel challenges that we had. We covered our first ever job, which actually was a massive commercial job that we somehow staffed and got done and got a good review. And now here we are, we are five weeks into operating our pinks window services franchise in Palm beach County, florida, and so we're going to share with you guys some of the most recent experiences we've had over the last week. Our aim is to bring you guys um the we bought our franchise podcast just about every single week and just keep you up to date on everything that's happening. So, jill, what's been happening with you? What have you been working on?

Speaker 2: 1:34

Gosh. Well, I mean we'll go into the business part um in a little bit, but what I've been working on, really two things Um. One, this is really our first experience networking locally um with the franchise insiders. You know, we work with clients all over the country, some international um, but this is like a hyper local market so there's so many very cool local marketing and networking opportunities. So I've been doing a lot of that and it's amazing the connections that you find when you have a local business.

Speaker 2: 2:09

So you know, for instance, I went to a lunch the other day and I mentioned Pinks and one of the girls that was sitting at my table said pinks, pinks how do I know that name? And it turns out she saw one of our clients post on social media Um, so it's showing that that that power of, like the referrals and the local marketing, it really does do something. I mean, she knew exactly what it was. I had never met this lady and I even talked to the girl who posted um her experience with paints, one of our clients, and she said she didn't even know this person. So the reach is there and I love seeing that. So that's been really fun, um, and it just again shows you the power of of local, like online, social media marketing.

Speaker 1: 2:50

I mean, I think that's huge. And I think for all of you out there, um, as franchise consultants, we've seen it right Clients who have not done a good job of using Instagram and Facebook, and Tik TOK who have not done a good job of really going hard after getting Google reviews, um, with our franchise, we have really been um posting onto social like crazy. We show, I mean, we do little things. And for those of you that maybe are just starting your own franchise, we'll go visit a job site and we'll take pictures of the guys cleaning a house and we'll say things like hey, there's pinks Palm beach cleaning another house and you'd be amazed at the traction that gets. Or even just simple things like our guys leaving you know branded hats at people's homes, um, and telling them you know, take a picture in the hat and yeah, and you know what else we're doing is, anytime someone spots our van, we call it pinks in the wild, right?

Speaker 2: 3:41

So you know, if they're in our neighborhood and we know they're here, it's fine, Um. Or if there's somewhere you know, on a, on a job site, we know they're there, I don't count that. But if someone actually sees the van or the truck driving on a main street or parked you know somewhere, they weren't expecting it. That's another thing we do is, hey, post it. You know, post a Pinks in the Wild spotting, and you know we'll give you a free hat or Starbucks card, just something to kind of get people in that mode. And we had, I would say honestly, our first real, true pink spotting yesterday. So actually one of our clients, who has a local franchise here as well, um, was driving around, saw the van and said, oh my God, I see it.

Speaker 2: 4:23

So it was very exciting to see that happen, Um, and so you know again, there's these fun things you can do that we haven't really been able to do with the franchise insiders, with a local business and um, you just see, that referral, that word of mouth and just the exposure on social media can be huge and we want that recognition, we want brand recognition. So, anyway, it's picking up. It's five weeks. It's very exciting that people are really starting to know our name, um and our brand and we're getting the great referrals, we're getting the great reviews. So, like overall, so happy with that.

Speaker 1: 4:56

Yeah, and I think the theme of this podcast episode, the more I think about, like Jill's talking about, you know, networking with other local home service franchise owners. So, like she was at an event with the Gatsby glass um franchise owners, um, we've already, you know, had dialogue with a um uh, bumblebee blindss local franchisees. I think the theme of this podcast is you're in business for yourself, but not by yourself, and you're a franchise owner and not only will you find that you get all the support and I want to go into that on this podcast that you could ever imagine from your franchise or but from other franchise owners as well, because it's kind of like being a part of a club. All of us are kind of out there and I think you really feel it in home services. We're out there, we're building, we're celebrating our wins. Like you know, when Jill was at the luncheon yesterday the other franchisee that you were sitting with didn't she just close a big deal?

Speaker 2: 5:48

Yeah, she closed a huge deal and it was so exciting to see, because I understand that feeling, I love seeing them be successful, and so we cheers, we cheers to our diet Coke, to it, um, but that was very cool to see that too.

Speaker 2: 6:00

So, celebrating each other's wins and then always just sitting at a table. Yesterday we came up with so many ways that we can all work together. I have another local business owner who has a bakery and she makes, like custom cakes and cookies, and we were talking about our grand opening, which we're starting to plan, which is another thing that's very exciting, um, and she said let me, let me make you something. Send me your logo and I'm going to make you some cupcakes or some cookies for your opening. Didn't ask for it, she volunteered because we're all willing to help each other out in as many ways as we can. She also introduced me to um, a property manager who has multiple homes in some of these gated communities great client to have. So just talking and sharing and working together is just such a unique process and, as Jack said, you're not doing it on your own.

Speaker 2: 6:50

You have a lot of support from people, from even just from our neighbors, from just, you know, clients referring us our customers giving us these reviews, but also then going on their neighborhood Facebook pages and saying, hey, we just had pinks at our house. They're amazing. Here's their contact information.

Speaker 1: 7:06

And the power of that is like well, I feel like half the jobs that we do when we have the van parked out of someone's outside of someone's house, we're getting people coming up to us, coming up to our guys, and saying, hey, can I hire you guys? Um, are you insured? Now, that's something I didn't. I just it never occurred to me, but that's a big deal, um, people, that's why they want to work with franchise. Franchisees like us versus local mom and pops. We're insured, we're doing things the right way, we carry the correct levels of general liability because our franchisor advises us on the right things to do. They have all the one-stop shopping for us to make sure we're aligned with the right insurance partners. So I think that's just another huge benefit of being a franchisee is being able to do all this stuff as a business owner. And, by the way, as Jill was toasting the fellow franchisees, big win. Little did she know that at the same time we were doing our biggest residential job to date.

Speaker 2: 8:01

Oh, that's right.

Speaker 1: 8:01

I can't disclose what the number is, but I can tell you it was the biggest, biggest residential job that we've done. And what we're finding is, as Pink's franchisees, yes, we clean windows, we do a tremendous job of of making windows just look spectacular, but also there's a huge need for power washing and these power washing jobs are really big.

Speaker 2: 8:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Um, and they're great high margin jobs. So you know, that's the fun of this is we're learning and we're celebrating these wins and it's given us just this, this new thing in our life. That is just so exciting. Um, and the other part I wanted to add on the sort of um, the subject of in business for ourselves but not by ourselves. So every week we do a pinks franchise owner sort of um conference call where we're all in like a Google chat and, as a competitive person, I love it because we're talking about.

Speaker 1: 8:52

You know how we're stacking up to other offices. We're learning from other offices what they're experiencing about. You know how we're stacking up to other offices. We're learning from other offices what they're experiencing. The franchise owner, the franchisor, is doing a really great job facilitating this, holding us accountable, making sure. You know it's really easy for all of us, all of us to say we're too busy for these types of things, but they're making sure that we understand it's really important for us to do it. So we see that the forest is the forest through the trees.

Speaker 2: 9:20

Yeah, I don't know. I know I can never tell the. I mix everything up when I say it. But yeah, the trees through the forest forest through the trees, forest through the trees, I think that's it.

Speaker 1: 9:26

I have no idea but I love it because it just opens things up Right and it we can learn from other franchisees. They can learn from us. Like there was a uh, an insurance question that came up on the call that we were able to answer because we already went through it. So there's strength in numbers, um and again it's just the value of being a franchise owner. I mean, when we started franchise insiders, we had to figure all this stuff out by ourselves, and we still have to figure out franchise insider stuff on our own.

Speaker 2: 9:52

Well, it's different. It's a. It's a different type of job. It's more we're we're. I wouldn't say we're in competition with each other, but we kind of have to do our business the way that we do. It's not something we're going to share all of our secrets with everyone. However, with pinks, yes, we are going to share our secrets with everyone because we all want to be successful and if we can share something that that was helpful in our particular location that could be helpful elsewhere. Also good to note that there are differences in different locations, that the way, like whether it's insurance or just how people do things, or just even the nature of the clientele in, you know, texas versus Florida, you know it's good to see that because then, as pinks grows, they're going to understand some of these differences and maybe some challenges and some similarities between the territories to really help the franchise. So this is all like a growing learning experience.

Speaker 2: 10:48

Um, and you know, like Jack said, there's a little bit of competition in there because if you're competitive, you do want to see that maybe another you know location is is beating you out because that's just a little bit more drive.

Speaker 1: 11:01

We're happy to be teammates, but we still want to kick your ass. But that's the fun of it, that's, and I've always said franchise, being a franchise owner, is a competitive sport, um, but, but you do have the support of the franchise or any other owners, um, so that it's just so. It's. It's gratifying to see, and also I just love the, the, how they simplify things for us, like here's our, here's our weekly sort of goal for how many estimates we want to get.

Speaker 2: 11:26

It's very simple, actually, the the business model. It's very simple. It's based on estimates how many jobs per truck? You know how many trucks you have.

Speaker 2: 11:34

It's really like I'm not good with numbers at all Jack can vouch for me I'm not but I understand this. They've made it very clear, um and so that's it's helpful for all of us. And again, you know, there's that little spark of competition, but we're also helping each other out because they're not stealing our customers. We're talking about totally different locations, so there's no threat that anyone is going to do something and not share what they're doing, because it really has no effect, because we're miles apart from each other. So again, there's it's helpful in the sense that we can hear some of this and it breeds the competition, especially if you're competitive. I mean, I'm sure some of them may not be, that's okay, that's fine, but we are. So it is helping us really look at, hey, you know, we're seeing some of these locations doing more estimates or more commercial jobs, or we we realize maybe our team needs to pick up on the subscription model. You know. It just gives us an idea of what's being done out there to help guide.

Speaker 1: 12:49

It's a great weekly gut check and that's. I think that's really helpful and it's just another example of how, as a franchise owner, we've got that support that we are in business for ourselves but not by ourselves, and, um, I think it's really nice to have. I I'm excited about this grand opening that Jill's working on. How many people do you think you're going to?

Speaker 2: 13:08

get. I'm worried because I feel like we're inviting hundreds. But this is one of those things that as we go out there and we network and we find people, we want to invite them. It's going to be a party party. It's not. We're not, you know, doing speeches. It's come celebrate this amazing new business. Come meet the owners.

Speaker 1: 13:25

Didn't you like create like a? Aren't they creating like a signature pink drink?

Speaker 2: 13:29

Yeah, then we found a really cool location. It's a restaurant that Jack and I go to often, um, but the theme, the theme of the restaurant, is very cute too, but they, they're known for their Rose and Frose. So, um, we're working with them to do like a, a pink themed menu for everyone. So it's gonna be really fun, but very like, very casual. Come get to know us, come see our team, let's celebrate, let's just cheers together, um, and yeah, I mean I don't know how many people are going to know coming, but, uh, we'll be ready for them.

Speaker 1: 14:01

There's going to be pink skies walking around serving drinks. It's going to be a blast. I don't think they're going to be serving drinks Anytime you lots of booze, lots of swag, um.

Speaker 2: 14:11

So yeah, it's going to be, but it's invite only, so you know we got to keep it a little bit exclusive, but anyway, it's going to be a really great time. So we're excited. We have some really great local influencers coming at the PR agency. Um, that's going to come by. Um, as I mentioned, we're getting desserts donated from a local um Baker and. Um, if you're listening to this and you're local and you want to do something, give us a call. We're more than happy.

Speaker 1: 14:36

Right, come on by.

Speaker 2: 14:37

But again it's more of like let's support each other, Um, and let's just really celebrate this amazing new opportunity.

Speaker 1: 14:45

Joe, how many hours a day do you think you're averaging on pinks right now?

Speaker 2: 14:47

For me an hour hour yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:50

I think I would. I probably average about an hour to two hours a day. Some days it's like a half hour, other days it's two hours. We do like a weekly team meeting. We take our team out for breakfast. I mean, it's just these things.

Speaker 1: 15:03

If this sounds like the kind of thing that's fun for you, I know it is for us. Yeah, we love having this camaraderie. We, like you, know being able to lead a team and and it's great because we've got this young group of of, uh, what we call techs who work for us and in fact, we're actually interviewing, um, I think, three new people on Friday. Um, but if, if you're a people person, if you like managing people and helping people to grow, um, this has that. Franchises have that. Um, and again, this is it's. It's neat to have this in our lives as it's um, as it's growing.

Speaker 1: 15:36

Now I want to be clear, kind of how Jill and I are looking at this. So we already have another business, our franchise consulting business. Um, we don't have an immediate urgency to make money on pinks, um, that's not the way we're setting it up. We're taking a longer view. So a lot of people have asked hey, listen, what if I wasn't like you. What if I wanted to run my pinks full time and start making money as soon as possible? Well, for us, we've hired a GM and we pay our GM a base salary plus the commission, um. So the general guidance is if you're going to be your own GM, then you pay yourself that base salary, um.

Speaker 1: 16:12

And I think that as a business owner, you'll find you're used to making a lot of you out there probably used to making six figure salaries and that's always the biggest question how soon can I replace my income? But you need to remember that as a business owner, you're able to keep a lot more of your money, um, and it isn't always advantageous as advantageous to pay yourself a high six figure salary. I think you'll find that if you pay yourself 60 to 75 K plus a commission, and then if there are profits in the business and you can do things where you are able to distribute any profits that you like into your account, you can do things like that. That's a conversation you don't need to have with your accountant. But my point is as a business owner, you keep a lot more money in your pocket.

Speaker 1: 16:57

But the way we help potential franchisees to determine how they can get to the lifestyle they want as a franchise owner. It generally comes down to how many franchise units you want to buy and for those of you out there that you know are used to the old school, you know restaurant franchises a unit is a location, right, it's a. You know a McDonald's location? Um, for home services franchise, it's a bit more nuanced it is population. So I think the average population for home services franchise, like pinks, is about 250,000 people per territory. So what you do is, when you're exploring a franchise, you refer to their FDD and their item 19 within their FDD, which should show you what the average revenue is per territory, and then you can create your unit strategy to get you where you want to go based upon that. That's how we help people's franchise consultants. But that's not this podcast. This is us talking about being franchise owners Right cross promotion there.

Speaker 1: 17:51

Right, by the way, for those of you that want to subscribe to this podcast, we've got a fancy website for you WeBoughtAFranchisecom. Visit, subscribe. We'd love to have you subscribe and keep listening and liking and doing all those things. So please visit WeBoughtAFranchisecom. If you'd ever like to speak to me and Jill about our experiences as pinks windows franchise owners, you can always text 3 0, 5, 7, 1, 0, 0, 0, 5, 0. Um, or even call our 800 number, 800. 4, 4, 5, 6, 3, 2. Um, but again this week really drilling down on franchise owners being in business for ourselves, but not by ourselves getting tons of great support. Um, that's really been helpful, jill. Anything else on your end?

Speaker 2: 18:34

Yeah, you know what I was thinking, guys, I'd love to hear your questions for us too. So, um, you have our numbers. Jack, just gave you the whole thing. Just text us If you have any questions. I'd love maybe for our next either our next one or the one after to answer some questions that you guys have.

Speaker 2: 18:51

Um, because I think, again, we're doing this. We're obviously doing it for ourselves, but we really want to share with you guys what this experience is like. Um, so you know, we want to hear what you want. What you want to hear, I mean, what is it that we could share with you? I know we're still kind of in the beginning stages of this, but this is kind of the this is the real exciting time and maybe the most challenging time as we're doing it.

Speaker 2: 19:14

So, um, you know, if you're looking, whether you're looking at pinks or just a franchise in general, or just you know out there just kind of collecting information. If you have any questions about, like, this process or anything specific to what we're doing, send them over. Um, cause I'd love to take one of these podcasts and just focus on some of the questions that you guys have for us.

Speaker 1: 19:34

I actually did get a question Um uh, not just now, but I got one previously which now it just came in just now.

Speaker 1: 19:40

Now, no, the question was can you guys tell us how your your sales growth is and what numbers you're hitting that type of thing? So the numbers we quote on our other podcast, the inside scoop, where we talk about franchises that sell, that is, that is derived from the item 19. So I can't go throwing around numbers that we're realizing, but here's what I can tell you Um, of the five weeks we've been in business, we have grown in sales every single week. We have not had a negative trend. Um, so that has been to me. Looking at a trend and looking at pipeline are two very important things. Um, we, we are seeing a positive trend. Um on revenue. Um, um.

Speaker 1: 20:22

What's interesting is someone else asked me now I'm thinking of another question I got hey, how busy are you guys next month? It doesn't, doesn't work that way. We do have um. So we do aim to set up commercial clients on what we call maintenance plans. Um, because, frankly, if you got windows and you're a business, you need them washed weekly, bi-weekly, monthly. You really need them cleaned because they get really dirty.

Speaker 1: 20:46

Um, so we do set up residential or, excuse me, commercial clients on what we call maintenance plans. So, yes, we probably have, uh, at this point, probably 10 clients that we've set up on maintenance plans, that we're going back on those types of intervals, um, but what I found on the residential side is that people contact us within a week, right, um, they find us on Google, they find us on Facebook, they find us on various other sources, um, and they're contacting us and then we are visiting their homes, we're quoting them, we're getting the job scheduled. So a lot of the pipeline happens pretty quick, um, but again, this is where the franchisor is coaching us and saying make sure you're building those relationships with the commercial clients. It's for their benefit and for our benefit, because then we can really start to lock in a real solid sort of prediction for where our business will be. So that's my answer for those questions. You do get a good predictability on pipeline as long as you focus on locking and longer term deals.

Speaker 2: 21:44

Right. And again, I think there's two factors to look at that too. One um, we do want to do this subscription model for commercial, but we do want to do it for residential Also. The thing is it's it's not on like a biweekly basis, it's more of like a will come quarterly. Um, the upsell it's like oh hey, you guys are here doing windows. Wait, you pressure wash too. Okay, can you come back next week? So we're starting to kind of see those patterns.

Speaker 2: 22:07

But yes, the first time we do visit someone, we really want to try to get them on a maintenance plan as well too, and so that's really important. But that's months out as we're looking at it. So we're looking at it. So we're usually unless they find another thing for us to do, you know that's we won't know next month, but that might be three or four months down the line. And that's really what we try to do, and make it so easy for them to not have to remember when to call us back. Just put it on the calendar. We'll be back in three months, you know. Call us if you need anything in the meantime. So I think that's really important for the residential.

Speaker 1: 22:40

You know that actually happened on residential where someone called us and it looked like it was like a hundred dollar job and it ended up being 10 times that literally, because once we went and we looked at it and we assessed it, um their windows were very dirty.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Yeah, well, and they also needed power washing and they need that. So it's exactly what Jill said. Um, I think that, as experts now in our field, which we have the team to do it, we can go and assess someone's home and it's amazing. I mean, again, a month and a half ago we weren't doing this right, and now we're doing it and we, I mean, go check it out, guys, pinks windows, palm beach I think we've got at least 10 five-star Google reviews up there. I mean, it's legit, the franchise or trained us, they trained our team and it's, it's happening, it's real, um.

Speaker 1: 23:23

So again, if that doesn't speak to the, the, the, just the value of franchising, franchising, I don't know what else does, but anyways, this is our sort of weekly report of where we're at and I can say again we're, we're really happy. Of course, we want things to grow faster, but listen, that is what it is. Like Jill said, the first year, the first year of growing a franchise, it can definitely be your most challenging, um, but I think if you can have a long-term mindset, um, then you can, you can put yourself in a really good place to um. Well, I mean, I'll just tell it to you. I think the best perspective is don't let the highs get to get you too high or the lows get you too low, Cause you're going to experience both. You've got to stay in the middle.

Speaker 2: 24:04

Yeah, great advice.

Speaker 1: 24:07

I'm going to try and take it myself.

Speaker 2: 24:09

Let's replay this for you when we get into those lows, um, no, but it's been a fun experience, Um, and you know again, everything's learning experience. We're learning with our staffing, we're learning, you know, pretty much everything on every job, the feedback that we're getting from clients, which has all been really positive, which is great. But, like everything, anytime there's any kind of like, mixed up or mistake, we learn from it and we move on and we don't have it happen again. So, anyway, very it's a very exciting time and we're so excited to share with you guys. But, yes, please send over any questions that you have and then, um, you know, maybe on our next episode, or even the one after that, we'll address them.

Speaker 1: 24:49

Oh, I have one. One last thing, sorry, um. Jill and I were in on vacation in the Bahamas last week and we ran into a client who bought a different franchise, um, and she was sharing with us that she's a year into it. She's already their top performing franchisee, a new franchisee, and she broke even within like six months. So we had an idea. Joe and I have typically not done um interviews on any of our podcasts, but we thought the theme of this we bought a franchise podcast is to bring you guys all in and share experiences of franchise owners. Um, we are going to bring this individual onto one of our next podcasts as soon as we can get her Um, and we thought, since Franchise Insiders has all these clients out there, maybe this show now is the format to bring on these clients that we have.

Speaker 2: 25:34

Clients that bought a franchise. Exactly Probably the same feeling as us. Oh shit, we bought a franchise right.

Speaker 1: 25:40

So you're going to get a little bonus with the. We bought a franchise podcast. You're going to hear from other franchise owners at different stages of their growth too, so look for that to come on in the future. Lots of exciting things for you guys. So thank you for listening. Please visit. We bought a franchisecom, if we can. You know. If you want our advice on anything searching for a franchise, if you own a franchise, someone to talk to on any of it, feel free to hit us up.

Speaker 2: 26:04

I'm Jack and I'm Jill and we bought a franchise.

Speaker 1: 26:06

Talk to you next time.